The Human Rights Program counts on a talented and distinguished group of instructors. Many of them are not only expert on a range of human rights issues, they have extensive experience as human rights researchers and activists, and bring a wealth of real-world knowledge to their classes. Our instructors include:
Dr. Catherine Tinker, Distinguished Lecturer
Dr. Catherine Tinker is the Distinguished Lecturer in the Human Rights Program, teaching three sections of HR 200, Introduction to Human Rights. She has taught special courses in the HRP on environmental human rights and on climate change and human rights.
Dr. Tinker has taught public international law, international environmental law and human rights at Seton Hall University in the School of Diplomacy and International Relations and at several law schools in the U.S. and Brazil since earning her doctorate in international law (J.S.D.) at NYU Law School a decade after her law degree (J.D.) from GWU Law School.
She began her law practice as a government lawyer and hearing officer/administrative law judge, and as a representative of an NGO accredited to the United Nations. She has published articles and contributed to books on women’s rights and equality, international environmental law and policy, climate change and shared water resources. Several years ago, she was a Fulbright U.S. Scholar in Argentina, and she continues to serve on the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) and on the NYC Bar Association’s Council on International Affairs.
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Adjunct Faculty
Dr. Roni Amit is a human rights lawyer whose research focuses on rights protection, administrative justice, legal processes, and developments in the areas of refugee law and immigration detention and deportation. She has worked as a pro bono attorney representing detained women and children from Central America. Prior to that, Dr. Amit was a Senior Researcher with the African Centre for Migration & Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she conducted socio-legal research and supported strategic litigation efforts. She also worked as a research and strategic litigation fellow at Lawyers for Human Rights in Johannesburg and as a counselor in their refugee rights clinic. Dr. Amit has a PhD in political science from the University of Washington and a law degree from New York University.
Katherine Caldwell is an adjunct professor who taught HR 220.01: Application of Human Rights Norms in the United States in the Fall 2016 semester. Professor Caldwell’s area of scholarship is international human rights, including economic and social rights, workers’ rights, migrants’ rights, and the domestic implementation of international human rights in the United States. Professor Caldwell has a background in international human rights advocacy, domestic litigation, and lawyering with grassroots organizations. She formerly served as the director of the Human Right to Work with Dignity Program at the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI). Professor Caldwell is a former associate of the English law firm Allen & Overy LLP and a former law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and for the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. She received her undergraduate degree from Brown University and her law degree from Columbia Law School.
Cassandra Cavanaugh is an adjunct professor who taught HR 220.02: Human Rights in Russia & the Former Soviet States in the Fall 2016 semester. Professor Cavanaugh’s area of scholarship is Russian and Soviet history. Dr. Cavanaugh is formerly the Director of Grants and Advocacy at Open Society Institute’s Central Eurasia Project. Prior to her work with Open Society Institute, Dr. Cavanaugh taught history of Russia and Central Asia at the Holy Cross College in Massachusetts. She also served as a Senior Researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Central Asian department. Cavanaugh is one of the best known specialists in the sphere of human rights in Central Asia. Dr. Cavanaugh holds a Ph.D. in Russian history from Columbia University.
Joseph Chuman (Teaching Fall 2018 and Spring 2019)
Joseph Chuman is the leader of the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, NJ. He has worked for decades as an activist on behalf of human rights and civil liberties, and in opposition to the death penalty, as well as other progressive causes. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Humanist, Free Inquiry, Humanistic Judaism and other periodicals. Chuman has taught human rights at several academic institutions, including Columbia University and the United Nations University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica. He received a Ph.D. in religion from Columbia University and a BA from Queens College, CUNY.
Carla De Ycaza (Teaching Fall 2018 and Spring 2019)
Carla De Ycaza is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, and serves as Editor of the Dialogues on Historical Justice and Memory Network at Columbia University. She has worked with civil society organizations in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and has held various positions at NGOs, legal and academic institutions in New York City, including the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the International Peace Institute, the American Council on Africa and Human Rights First. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, and served as Editor in Chief of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Rights Law. She received her M.A. in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University, her B.A. in Political Science and Classics from Vassar College, and is currently completing her Ph.D. in International Human Rights Law at the Irish Centre for Human Rights. Her research has focused primarily on traditional and modern approaches to post-conflict transitional justice in Africa in response to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Ejim Dike (Teaching Fall 2018)
Ejim Dike is a human rights and social policy advocate with over 20 years of experience in the field, and a strong track record of engaging grassroots groups in global spaces to advance human rights accountability. She is experienced in building United Nations literacy for grassroots activists, and has worked with groups in the United States and globally. Ms. Dike’s expertise is in international human rights law, gender and racial justice, the right to water, economic, social and cultural rights, as well as government accountability and leadership development. Ms. Dike currently works in philanthropy to advance gender equality, LGBTQI rights, and racial justice. She served as the chief executive officer of a national human rights organization with over 300 organizational members for several years, and in senior management positions for over 10 years. Her executive experience includes organizational development, knowledge management, resource development and fundraising, board development, strategic planning, team building and high-performance coaching. She speaks and guest lectures frequently on a range of human rights topics, and has been cited often by the media.
Tanya Domi (Teaching Fall 2019)
Tanya Domi is a Senior Fellow at the Alliance for Peacebuilding, based in Washington, D.C. She is also Director of Media Relations and Spokesperson at the Graduate Center CUNY, an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and an affiliate faculty member of the Harriman Institute. Before she began teaching, Domi worked for the late U.S. Rep. Frank McCloskey, serving as his defense policy analyst in the early 1990s during the run-up to the Bosnian war. Domi also served in the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina 1996-2000 as Spokesperson, Counselor to the Head of Mission and Chair of the OSCE Media Experts Commission. Domi has worked in a dozen countries, including in Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Haiti, Kosovo, Montenegro, Nepal, The Gambia, The Philippines and Serbia. She has specialized in working on democratic, economic, media and political transitional development, as well as human rights and gender identity and sexual orientation issues. Domi served 15 years in the United States Army, 1974-1990. She is a graduate of Central Michigan University where she obtained a BA degree in journalism and political science in 1981 and earned a MA degree at Columbia University in Human Rights in 2007.
Jehanne Henry is an independent consultant on human rights and international justice issues. She was an adviser in Sudan’s transitional government’s ministry of justice in 2020-2021. Prior to this she was a director in the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, where she oversaw the organization’s work on Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and conducted fact-finding missions across the region and in Chad and Mali, among other places. She has authored dozens of reports, opinion pieces, and articles on human rights issues in East Africa and appeared in international media outlets. She has taught human rights at Hunter College’s Human Rights Program, Columbia University, and guest-lectured at numerous other institutions. She is an expert with the Justice Rapid Response roster and a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute. Previously, Henry served with the UN, USAID, and NGOs in other conflict and post-conflict zones including Darfur, Kosovo and Cambodia. She also worked in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and clerked for a US federal judge. She is an attorney admitted to the New York bar.
Fiyola Hoosen-Steele is an international relations strategist specializing in international human rights and human rights law with a strong focus on the United Nations (UN) system and processes. She has over 17 years experience in international relations and foreign policy having served as a South African diplomat to the UN in both New York and Geneva, and thereafter as Head of UN Office and UN Representative for the non-governmental organization, Plan International. She is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Hunter College in the Human Rights Program. She holds a Bachelor of Law degree and a Bachelor of Arts Honors degree in International Relations from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, and a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.
Stephen L. Kass is a partner and founder of the Environmental Practice Group at Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP in New York. Prior to joining Carter Ledyard & Milburn, he was a founding partner of Berle, Kass & Case, a firm specializing in environmental law from the field’s inception in the 1970s. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Yale in 1961 and his LL.B. cum laude from Harvard in 1964 and has taught courses on climate change, human rights and the environment as an Adjunct Professor at Brooklyn Law School, NYU’s Center on Global Affairs and Columbia’s School of International and Policy Affairs. Mr. Kass has written a regular column on “Environmental Law” for the New York Law Journal since 1986, is a past Vice-President of the New York City Bar Association, current Chair of the Association’s Task Force on Climate Adaptation, an emeritus director of Human Rights Watch (where he formerly chaired its Policy Committee) and a member (and past chair) of the board of directors of the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.
Elise Keppler has been Senior Counsel in the International Justice Division at Human Rights Watch, where she has served for ten years. She previously served in the Democratic Governance and Rights Unit of the University of Capetown Faculty of Law in South Africa, as a litigation attorney with the NYC law firm Schulte, Roth & Zabel, as a researcher on arms and conflict at the Fund for Peace. She holds a AB with Honors from Brown University, and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.
Phelim Kine (Teaching Fall 2018)
Phelim Kine is the Director of Research and Investigations at Physicians for Human Rights and a former Deputy Director, Asia Division, at Human Rights Watch. A former news wire bureau chief in Jakarta, he worked as a journalist for more than a decade in China, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Taiwan prior to joining Human Rights Watch in April 2007. At Human Rights Watch, he researched and advocated on human rights issues in countries including China, Pakistan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Afghanistan. Mr. Kine’s opinion pieces have appeared in media including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes, The Guardian, and the Harvard International Review. Mr. Kine has spoken publicly on human rights issues at venues ranging from the European Parliament and the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong to the Council on Foreign Relations and a hearing of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC). He is a graduate of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
Ralph Mamiya is a member of the Protection of Civilians Team in the United Nations Departments of Peacekeeping Operations and Field Support. Now based in New York, Ralph spent the majority of his career working on conflict issues in a number of African countries, particularly Sudan and South Sudan. He holds a law degree from Cornell Law School.
Jenny Mincin has over twenty years of experience in the government, non-governmental, and academic sectors both nationally and internationally. Jenny is a specialist in disaster human services and humanitarian crisis work, refugees, vulnerable and special needs populations, mental health and resiliency, and community rebuilding/recovery. She is Assistant Professor and Mentor at Empire State College in Community and Human Services as well as an Adjunct Professor in the Human Rights program. She has also taught at Hunter College School of Social Work and Fordham University’s School of Social Service and Business Administration in the Center for Nonprofit Leaders. Jenny has worked for the City of New York, International Rescue Committee, Federal Emergency Management Agency as well as state and international governments.
Jenny’s research, publications, and interests include crisis, vulnerable populations (disability, aging, women and girls, and refugees and displaced populations), strength-based approaches (resilience and community integration), and mental and behavioral health models for individuals and communities. She is also interested in program evaluation and quality improvement science as a means for strengthening services and evidence-based models locally and globally. Jenny has a PhD in Social Welfare Policy and a Masters of Philosophy in Social Welfare Policy from the Graduate Center CUNY. She also has an MPA from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and received her BA from Barnard College/Columbia University in Religion and Environmental Science.
Marianne Møllmann heads Physician for Human Rights’ research and investigations team, supporting the planning, coordination, and implementation of research by staff and volunteers. She was most recently director of programs at OutRight Action International and has extensive expertise on gender-based discrimination and violations of bodily autonomy from her time there and at Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. She has conducted and supervised research in several countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Iraq, Iran, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the United States, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Møllmann has a background in strategic brand planning, and more than a decade of experience in the not-for-profit world in communication, advocacy, research, management, and fundraising. She has authored numerous reports on women’s rights, economic rights, and gender-based discrimination. Her opinion pieces on human rights and gender have appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, RHRealityCheck, and the Huffington Post, among other outlets.
Møllmann has served as adjunct lecturer on sexual orientation, gender identity, and human rights at Hunter College (Spring 2015), and in human rights advocacy and research at New York University. From 2008 to 2010, she co-taught a masters course on health rights at Yale University’s School of Public Health in New Haven. She is a returning lecturer on women’s rights and LGBT issues at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy. Møllmann holds an MSc in European management from Ecole des Affaires de Paris in France and an LLM in international human rights law from Essex University in the United Kingdom. Møllmann is fluent in Danish and Spanish, and is conversant in French.
Habib Nassar has 15 years of experience working on human rights and transitional justice issues in the Middle East and North Africa. He is currently a director at PILnet, a global network for public interest law, where he leads PILnet’s programs in the Middle East and North Africa. Before joining PILnet in October 2012, he worked with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNDP as a senior transitional justice adviser for the Middle East and North Africa. Prior to that, Nassar worked for nearly six years at the International Center for Transitional Justice, first as senior associate in charge of North Africa, and later as director of the ICTJ’s MENA program. Nassar previously worked for several local and international human rights groups, including Human Rights First, in NYC, and the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections, in Beirut. Nassar also served as legal advisor and board member of the Committee of the Families of the Abducted and Missing Persons in Lebanon, where he developed a strategy for addressing the problem of the “missing” during the war. He has a LL.M. from New York University School of Law, a post-graduate degree of Advanced Studies (DEA) in international law from Université Paris II, and a law degree from Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut.
Babatunde Olugboji (Teaching Fall 2018 and Spring 2019)
Babatunde Olugboji is Deputy Program Director for Human Rights Watch. He brings more than 25 years of experience to his job, having worked as a researcher, journalist, writer, editor, human rights activist, campaigner, and public policy analyst. Most recently he worked with Christian Aid in London and in Berlin with Transparency International. He collaborated with groups in Africa on membership development, anti-corruption strategies, evaluation techniques, and organizational development. Previously, he was executive director and cofounder of the Centre for Free Speech, Nigeria’s first specialist freedom of expression human rights group. Olugboji also received Britain’s prestigious Chevening Scholarship. He has researched and written extensively on freedom of expression and access to information, transparency in HIV/AIDS funding, tax justice and illicit flow of funds, and the corruption dimensions of human rights. He holds human rights certifications from institutions in Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United States, where he was a fellow of the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. Olugboji holds an advance degree in mass communication – specializing in the use of alternative media for social change – from the United Kingdom’s University of Leicester, where he is also writing his PhD thesis. His thesis focuses on how the British media frames corruption issues in Africa.
Rona Peligal is the Deputy Director of the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, where she helps supervise Human Rights Watch’s research on Africa, ensuring the quality and integrity of its investigations and strategizing on advocacy activities to promote human rights reforms in Africa. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Peligal served as vice president of the Near East Foundation, which promotes community-based development in the Middle East and North Africa; conducted a capacity-building project in East Africa with non-governmental organizations working on human rights, women’s rights, and HIV/AIDS; and coordinated an African women’s writing project for The Feminist Press. She received a Ph.D. in African history from Columbia University, where she specialized in women’s studies.
Dr. Roland Rich was for seven years Executive Head of the United Nations Democracy Fund and concurrently for the last four of those years Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Partnerships until his retirement from the UN in 2014. In 1975, he joined the Australian Foreign Office where he held positions as Legal Adviser, Assistant Secretary for International Organisations and Ambassador to Laos. He also had postings in Paris, Rangoon and Manila. Dr Rich joined the Australian National University in 1998 as Foundation Director of the Centre for Democratic Institutions, Australia’s government funded democracy promotion institute. He has also taught at the Australian Defence University and was a research Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC. Dr. Rich has contributed to the scholarly literature on democracy and democracy promotion. His most recent single-author book, Parties and Parliaments in Southeast Asia – Non-Partisan Chambers in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand was published by Routledge in 2013. He holds Arts and Law degrees from the University of Sydney and Master of International law and Doctor of Philosophy (Political Science) degrees from the Australian National University.
Ms. Riggle, a national of the United States, is currently the Chief of Staff for the Office of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC). She is also Senior Policy Advisor and is in charge of programmatic and administrative oversight for the office. She has a wide range of regional expertise from Africa, Europe and Asia-Pacific. Prior to the CAAC office, she was Director of the UN Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific, based in Nepal and covering 43 countries and assisting them to reach their disarmament goals. Ms. Riggle recently has served as a senior officer at both the UN World Food Programme, and the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sudan—where she was also on the Darfur Mediation Team. Previously, she served several years as the Director of the thinktank Centre for European Security and Disarmament in Brussels, and led strategic planning with the government as Head of the Strategic Development Unit for the OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro, focusing on police reform. She has enjoyed serving as an Adjunct Professor at Hunter College in New York teaching Child Rights. She earned a dual BA in Psychology and Spanish from Michigan State University, an MA in International Relations from the University of Kent (UK) and is a PhD candidate in post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation at the University of York (UK).
Lee Rowland is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. Lee has extensive experience as a litigator, lobbyist, and public speaker. She serves as lead counsel in federal First Amendment cases involving public employee speech rights, illegal arrest for reading protected material, and state secrecy surrounding the lethal injection process. She also authors amicus briefs and blogs on topics including the intersection of speech and privacy (e.g., restrictions on mug shots and nudity; the right to be forgotten, copyright injunctions), student and public employee speech, obscenity, and the Communications Decency Act. Lee serves as an adjunct clinical professor for NYU Law’s Technology Law and Policy Clinic, and is a member of the New York Bar Association’s Communications and Media Law Committee. Prior to joining the ACLU, Lee was a voting rights counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice; she previously ran the Reno office of the ACLU of Nevada, where she regularly argued before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Nevada Supreme Court. Lee is a graduate of Middlebury College and Harvard Law School, where she served as president of the Harvard Defenders and staffed the Harvard Human Rights Journal and the Harvard BlackLetter Law Journal. Professor Rowland taught HR 220.07: Freedom of Expression in the 21st Century in the Spring 2017 semester.
Abigail Ruane is an award-winning human rights scholar. Her research on the evolution of women’s human rights at the United Nations received the 2011 Best Dissertation Award of the American Political Science Association’s Human Rights Section. Together with Patrick James, Ruane also received the 2009 International Studies Association Misty Gerner Teaching Award, and a book that she wrote with James, The International Relations of Middle-earth: Learning from The Lord of the Rings (University of Michigan Press), was published in 2012. Ruane has published articles in International Studies Perspectives, the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, and the International Feminist Journal of Politics. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California’s School of International Relations.
Sherrie Russell-Brown (Teaching Spring 2019)
Sherrie Russell-Brown is currently a staff attorney with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She has long interest and experience in human rights, and broad legal and teaching experience including six years teaching human rights law as an Assistant Professor of Law and then Associate Professor of Law at the University of Florida, service as a consultant for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, a Blackmun Fellow and Staff Attorney at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy as well, and an adjunct clinical professor teaching human rights at CUNY Law School. She holds a BA from Pomona College, a J.D. from Columbia Law School, and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from Columbia Law School.
Faraz Sanei is the Director of the Project for Freedom of Religion or Belief at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies (The Graduate Center, City University of New York) and a Legal Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief. He previously served as the Director of the Human Rights in Iran Unit at the City University of New York—Brooklyn College, and a Legal Advisor to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. From 2010 to 2015, Faraz served as the Iran and Gulf researcher with Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, and was the interim executive director, program director and senior human rights lawyer for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center from 2008 to 2009. He was an associate at the law firm of Snell & Wilmer in Phoenix, AZ from 2001 to 2003, where he concentrated on environmental and regulatory matters, and worked at several law firms in Los Angeles from 2004 to 2008. Faraz holds a Juris Doctor from Vanderbilt University Law School, where he served as the Managing Editor of the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, and a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of California at Los Angeles. He is fluent in English and Persian (Farsi).
Deborah Sharnak is an adjunct professor who taught HR 320.02 The History of Human Rights: A View From Latin America in the Fall 2016 semester. Professor Sharnak is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying the history of human rights, transnational networks, and international relations. Professor Sharnak’s dissertation, “Uruguay and the Contested International History of Human Rights,” examines the origins and evolution of human rights discourse in Uruguay, particularly during its transition back to democratic rule, addressing issues of transitional justice, the rise of the transnational human rights movement, and the shifting terrain of human rights in the 1970s and 1980s.
Mark Shulman (Teaching Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019)
Mark R. Shulman is a scholar and experienced program builder, currently serving as a Visiting Research Scholar at Fordham Law School. He previously worked as an academic administrator at New York University and Pace Law School. He has also directed the security program at the EastWest Institute and practiced corporate law at Debevoise & Plimpton. He is a long-time leader at the New York City Bar, chairing several committees. Over the years, he has taught international law at Columbia and Sarah Lawrence College and history/international affairs at Yale, the U.S. Air War College, and Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He serves as a consultant to the Rockefeller Foundation and has served on the boards of Next Generation Nepal and the Asian University for Women.
Mark received a B.A. from Yale, a Master’s degree from Oxford, and a Ph.D. in history from the University of California at Berkeley. He earned his J.D. from Columbia where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Transnational Law. Mark has published widely in the fields of history, law and international affairs. His books include: The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare in the Western World (1994), Navalism and the Emergence of American Sea Power (1995), An Admiral’s Yarn (1999) and The Imperial Presidency and the Consequences of 9/11 (2007). His articles have appeared in such journals as the American Journal of International Law, Journal of National Security Law & Policy, Fordham Law Review, Journal of Military History, and Intelligence and National Security. He has also published in such outlets the New York Times, The Financial Times and Opinio Juris.
Miranda Sissons was Vice President of Purpose in 2011 and Senior Adviser there in 2012, Deputy Director for the Middle East, then Director for Institutional Development and later Chief of Staff at the International Center for Transitional Justice, an Adjunct Associate Professor at the NYU Global Affairs Program in 2008, a Researcher in the Middle East Division at Human Rights Watch from 2001 to 2004, an Australian diplomat in 1999-2001, Mideast Liaison for the NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court in Cairo in 1998-99, Program Officer at the World Federalist Movement in 1997-98, and a Researcher at the Yale Law School East Timor Rights Center in Australia in 1996-97. She holds a CA with First Class Honors from the University of Melbourne, and an MA in International Relations from Yale University.
Mary Tahui An is the Senior Director of Africa Programs at Sesame Workshop. She was also the Producer of the 2016 HatchLabs, an initiative funded by the Rockefeller Foundation designed to foster inclusive, collaborative storytelling. Prior to Sesame Workshop, Mary led development efforts at American Documentary POV, the Emmy-award winning PBS documentary series with major funding from PBS, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and others. Before joining POV, Mary managed and advised governance projects in international post-conflict settings. She served over two years with United Nations Development Program in Khartoum, Sudan working on a $98 million project strengthening democracy and ensuring elections. Activities included training local journalists and supporting media outlets. She has consulted for UN Women, National Democratic Institute, the Carter Center, Open Society Foundation, Emory University, and the United Nations Foundation and she is passionate about the transformational powers of media. Mary is an alumni of the Alliance 2015 Creative Leadership Lab at Sundance. Mary taught a course on media, human rights, and democracy during the Spring 2015 semester.
Daniel Wilkinson is the deputy director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch. An expert on Latin America, he has conducted fieldwork and advocacy throughout the region, and authored reports on human rights issues in Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, the United States, and Venezuela. Wilkinson’s writings on U.S. policy toward Latin America have been widely published, including in The Nation, the New York Review of Books, and the Washington Post. His book, Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala, won the PEN/Albrand Award for nonfiction. Wilkinson, who speaks fluent Spanish, is a graduate of Yale Law School.